Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-19-Speech-3-024"
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"en.20000119.2.3-024"2
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"Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I should like to take advantage of this opportunity on behalf of the ELDR Group to make three suggestions to the incoming presidency.
Firstly, let me say with regard to enlargement that we strongly welcome the change in what I would describe as the "mood music" and the political ambitions surrounding the enlargement debate. This has been confirmed at Helsinki and it now falls to this presidency to advance that dossier.
For those candidate states already advanced in negotiation it is clear that we are getting towards the more critical and difficult parts of the negotiating process and for those just given the green light at Helsinki we must begin that work.
In that context, it is important to recognise and address some of the elements that are emerging clearly in terms of public opinion and debate. It is obvious in some of the candidate states that there is a certain slippage in public opinion towards the European project. It is important that we recognise and address this in terms of policy. There is, in some cases, evidence of an emerging "them and us" mentality and we must confront this.
I should like to make a suggestion to the presidency that beyond the ordinary channels of diplomacy through which you are committed in your statement of objectives to consult candidate states about their perspectives and the IGC, you should consider using the European Conference as a mechanism and a method in a public way to hear and engage in dialogue with candidate states on their views. We suggest this as a means of indicating at the highest political level the parity of esteem which we accord to candidate states. It is important in the view of my Group to be and to be seen to be engaged in creating a Europe of partnership and not a Europe through diktat. We must find mechanisms to establish that clearly in the minds of our candidate partners along the way.
The second point I want to mention is the Intergovernmental Conference. It falls to you to undertake the extremely important task of establishing the agenda and launching the conference, sometimes, I suspect, a rather thankless and difficult task nonetheless. It is clear that the conference is committed to examining the Amsterdam leftovers. These are clearly necessary but in my view they are not sufficient in terms of an agenda ambition and I share the views of the other colleagues who have spoken here today.
One could almost feel the chill breeze of the closing door in Helsinki on the question of a wider ambition, but the conclusions left that door just ajar. Mr President-in-Office, I would ask you to place your foot firmly in that open door and to drive a more ambitious agenda. It is extremely important that we take an opportunity now through this IGC to try to put a bit of soul back into Europe. It is very clear that the current construction of the treaties fails to capture in a meaningful and accessible way the aspirations of contemporary Europe. The current Treaty fails to set out, in a clear and comprehensible way that any ordinary person can follow, how this place works. We must do a better job of explaining it by building it into the fabric of the basic documents and I urge you please to go back again. It may have been too soon in Helsinki to say "yes" to ambition. It will be too soon today to say "no". Go back and look at that and you will have the support of this House.
I strongly welcome your commitment to this idea of a Europe of innovation and knowledge and I look forward to contributing to that debate in this House and directly with the presidency.
We have done a lot of work with the United States on digital dialogue, especially at the moment in the area of privacy and data transmission, but it is inconclusive. We have a legislative forum between this House and the US Congress. We have regular summits between the Council and the United States and we have a receding window of opportunity with an outgoing administration to close off some of the dossiers. I would urge you, Mr President-in-Office, to take hold of this agenda and drive the transatlantic digital dialogue towards some specific and early conclusions and do not let it drift to be renewed at a later date under a subsequent administration. There is a real opportunity now and you can lock it down as part of your commitment to the Europe of innovation. Go for it. We wish you every success."@en1
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